I remember a Sunday when one of the one or two friends I still had called me to catch up. I had been pummeled by life, homeless save for the cozy spot I had been given on the floor in the same town where I earned an M.F.A. exactly 20 years earlier.

I was broken in a way that I had not experienced before. I spoke on the phone with her for an hour pacing in front of the bar as traffic hissed up and down Hiawatha Ave. I remember this day because while explaining my situation to this dear friend, I made realizations. I accepted that this was my mess and I would rebuild from it in my own way. The Pirate way.

Near Thanksgiving, I mustered the strength to return to NY once the oozing wounds had dried up enough to board a train. A train that took me back to Chicago and then on to the east coast. My friends greeted me like a corporal returning from Vietnam, donning a thousand-yard stare.

They gave me work in their restaurants and bars. I was holding down two hospitality gigs and filling-in at a third. I say I had 2.5 jobs which afforded only Mondays off. I slaved away, amusing my coworkers with a little act I would perform behind the bar, holding on to it while I lurched as if I was being raped in prison. I grunted and swayed and the waitresses laughed at my humility.

After months of this I woke one day feeling lousy. I called-in sick, something unheard of in the restaurant business. The headache I was experiencing worried me enough that I had my friend take me to a clinic where they took one look at my history and sent me to a bigger hospital down the river in Poughkeepsie. Once there, the doctors also refused to do anything, referring me to Mt. Sinai in New York City.

When a bed finally opened up they sent me down in an ambulance and my doctors received me warmly, remembering me from a previous visit.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Ribant. You’re having surgery tomorrow, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

They made a smaller C-shaped incision behind my right ear, that was dwarfed by the original scar, a massive incision that took 51 stitches to close, permanently removing the mechanics of my right ear, and allowed access to my skull. They collected some of my spinal fluid in hopes it would grow mold. When I woke up, they had given me half a Mohawk and I could feel the stitches on my bald patch. I used my phone and snapped a photo. This was how I found out I had had another brain surgery.

But my spinal fluid never grew any mold. So I lay in Mt. Sinai hospital for two weeks jacked up on steroids because it was the only way to kill the headache. I don’t know if it was the steroids or an existential crisis, but I did not sleep much during those two weeks. I grew to love nightly walks around my floor wheeling my IV with me as I took laps in my hospital gown. Late one night I decided that I wasn’t going back to my old life.

I decided that I would investigate an island that my friends had grown up visiting. I made some calls and sent a blind inquiry before the summer season began.

The owner of a Bed & Breakfast on the island got back to me.

“Do you know how to bartend?”

“Boy, do I.”

I was able to save one thousand dollars while getting butt fucked at work that Winter. I took that last bit of hope and used it to bus myself up to Maine and after two different gentlemen agreed to pick up a hitchhiker, I found myself in Port Clyde, a short ferry ride to Monhegan Island.

I already had a good backstory when I landed on the island. It helped that I had references who were well-known in the island community. I joined the army of college kids who were preparing the place for a summer tourist season. I stripped wallpaper, I planted grass, I painted buildings. My friends on the island showed me around. I knew immediately that I would like it there.

One day, my boss, the proprietor of The Trailing Yew said to me, “I hear you’re a painter.”

I put down a butter tray.

“Yes”

She said the bed & breakfast hosted a plein aire painting class and as an employee, I could sit in on it no charge.

I hadn’t painted in a decade but following the advice of my friends, I had happened to bring my watercolors. So when Caleb Stone showed up a week later, I introduced myself.

On the first day, I worked out the bugs and made what I call “a dog of a painting.” But on the second day of class it was misting so we set up under the eaves of the main hotel. I made a painting that day that officially announced my return. It all came back to me that morning and my classmates, mostly retirees from New England, began to notice me. And the instructor Caleb noticed too and asked me to be his assistant.

For the rest of that week I helped him guide the elderly students into the island interior to find spots to paint. Often they would set up their easels right in front of me so I added them to my scenes.

I settled in to my new Pirate lifestyle with oyster juice dripping from my beard and spiders in my bunk. Halfway through that Summer Captain Mattie Thomson asked me to help him lobster fish in the Fall. The fact that this was agreed to over a bottle of rum was not lost on me.

Mattie and I fished in the mornings, weather permitting and listened with disdain to the onboard radio as Brett Kavanaugh appeared before The Senate. A man named Epstein was accused of trafficking girls. In that moment I knew that with this new found freedom, I had to start plotting my escape. I knew not that 7 years later I would be writing you from Mexico but the step that I took towards that end was in place.

Of course the rest of the story takes place in Mexico as I took the $4000 that I saved working on the island and bought a plane ticket and 2 months of Spanish classes in Guanajuato. A global pandemic would help me stay in Mexico long enough to realize that I could live there and the rest is as they say, history. If you are new here at Walking and Chewing Gum, I urge you to peruse these stories as I have told every one worth telling. And for those who are paid subscribers, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without your continued support, none of this would have happened. Saludos piratas.

I attempted to pinpoint these cellular milestones by calculating with questionable math in order to prove my theory. In my early twenties I seemed to have the first mind-blowing awakening. I did recognize that it was probably due to the huge amount of information I was absorbing from a liberal arts education. Still, I could have simply focused on the known pragmatic view of things and become an illustrator driving around metro Detroit in a stick-shift Acura Integra.

Instead, I absentmindedly left the lid to my brain ajar. Carl Jung poured in along with Joseph Campbell and Terence McKenna. My professors picked up what I was throwing down and nudged me with Hunter S. Thompson and the I Ching. I devoured Kurt Vonnegut and Carlos Castaneda with my shoulder-length curls tangled in my beaded necklace and a cracked acrylic bong in the other hand. My Mexican classmate told me the Mayans spoke with aliens.

7 years later I decided that I didn’t want to build my ziggurat in the Midwest, playing the role of the whacked-out hippie at every 4th of July barbecue, sneaking hits off of my one-hitter that looked suspiciously like a harmless cigarette. I made another crazy turn and moved to the east coast where the big lesson may have been what not to do.

When a killer tumor took up lodging in my noggin it was truly touch and go. I had a feeling that this wasn’t how I was supposed to go out, but the majority of the people around me seemed convinced that it was, indeed. Perhaps the cellular benchmark here was surviving that ordeal and getting the hell out of Philly.

The next transformation can be classified affectionately as the “great remembering”. I had drifted so far off the path that when the voices called me back, they were almost indistinguishable.

There is an exercise that artists can undertake called a limited palette. And in fact it can be altered in many ways to teach drawing or painting or sculpting with limited materials. I like it very much because often I have limited materials, like, for real. In painting it is useful because it forces you to simplify what you are seeing and it takes away the intimidation of an endless rainbow of colors. An example in sculpture was illustrated masterfully by one of my colleagues who made everything out of two-by-fours.

In this latest 7-year cycle I am very conscious of this concept of the limited palette. It’s as if I am living my entire existence with an incomplete bag of tricks. I often tell people that living in a different culture is a great way to discover your strengths. When you have to force everything you say and do through the sieve of another language, what you actually know does shine through. And the stuff that you really don’t know much about or care about, naturally fall away. Now, it’s a violent and often grotesque shedding, and one that does not come if you are merely passing through said culture. I have the privilege of spending over six years like this so I have been able to see this play out. What I am saying is that if you tie someone’s hand behind their back, and release a rabid coyote on them, you bet your ass they will learn how to fend it off. Take away the endless rainbow of colors and see what one does with brown and yellow.

So, my point is that to really see someone’s potential, allowing them limited means is a good way to discover their strengths. And in fact this may be the single greatest factor of how I have been able to achieve anything in this recent cell life. Or hell, let’s just call it “that time Ron spent 6 years in Mèxico”, shall we?

Not only am I using three goddamned colors but I’ve been doing it without a computer. This may be where I lose everyone because who in their right mind does anything in 2026 without a computer? You can do it. I’ve figured it out. Also, you don’t need a car. And if you think you need a lot of money I will say again that I’ve been living in Mexico on an average of $8000/year.

I do not recommend this!

An income of $8000 does not allow for much. I am not living well. I cannot travel or return to the U.S. I have yet to purchase the proper documentation for temporary residency. Sometimes I eat white rice in chicken stock.

But you can live on white rice in chicken stock. You can take your holy shoes to a cobbler in Mexico and he’ll patch those fuckers up for $3. A bus ride to the farthest reaches of this city costs me .50 cents.

Ándale pues. As I reach the tail-end of another goddamned short handed epic 7-year such and such…the loudest message I am picking out of the cacophony:

let it go.

Just fucking forget about it bro. I can only hope and simultaneously quiver with fear that my dearest comrades would have to see what I just saw. Though you will find your meddle, odds are you won’t make it.

As far as I can recall, there have only been two bad experiences in México in six years time. Miraculously, they both involve the same bloke. Loyal readers may remember the expansive trope I penned about my solo show back in 2023:

I’ll recap in case you don’t have the time.

I was at a wedding and it was quite fun. After dinner, around 11 o’clock or so, they wheeled a taco cart into the reception for a late night snack. I was fascinated with the process and was watching intently as they set-up the spit with the pastor meat.

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Every single day I manage to stay here is a win. It makes no difference to me if that day has me eating a bowl of chicken stock with white rice or a Rib-eye with roasted potatoes. Either way, I’m in Mexico. Of course, I prefer the steak if I can get it, but I rarely sell enough paintings to splurge on such luxuries.

Yet I walk down the mountain everyday to the cutest little plaza where I inevitably run into someone who warmly greets me and asks how the painting is going.

It is said everyone wants a Van Gogh in the living room but few could tolerate Van Gogh himself in the living room. Though I find that to be mostly true, Mexicans have respect for artists and even more for a gringo living not on a pension or online business, but on beans and rice and a wing and a prayer. As I started to understand the language I would catch things that people were saying about me. That guy has respect because he’s been here for so long. This dude makes the best drinks I’ve ever had. Este pinche wey vende sus pinturas por un montón de dinero. They cheer me on when I go off on Capitalism. They pat me on the back when I tell my story in español.

If any government ever investigated me, I would bet my last five dollars they would only be left inspired. Sir, this guy lived for five years on what is considered below the poverty line in the U.S. for one. Chinga tu madre y vete a la verga culeros.

.

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There was a twelve-day window when México was offering free vasectomies for men’s health month. I don’t know what was more appealing, never having to worry about unwanted pregnancies or the story that I got a free vasectomy in México. Either way, I absolutely had to investigate.

First, I simply walked up to my local hospital and asked the receptionist if they were participating in the program later that week. She told me I would have to go to the general hospital. Just being able to ask the question in Spanish seemed like a win so I went home feeling satisfied with this first step.

I was working a little, bartending at a restaurant so time slipped away from me and I realized I was running out of it. One day, late in the 12-day window, I just hopped in a cab and said, “hospital general por favor.” Once there, I had to tell many people that I wanted a vasectomy but never mentioned the free program. I trusted that things would work out for me, they always seem to lately. Everyone that I asked seemed a little embarrassed but I held my composure, blinking back at the blushing security guards and nurses.

I was told to go to another location across town so I jumped in another cab. At the second location the process started all over again. “Yo quiero una vasectomia.” Finally, later that morning, a nurse walked me to a quiet hallway and explained the procedure to me in Spanish. She said I would need to ice my balls afterwards. I had an appointment for the procedure in two days. I was so excited that I forgot I was receiving an award later that day.

On the morning of the surgery, I arrived on-time but the receptionist at the clinic, now a third location, was baffled. “We don’t do those here.” After trying to explain that I was there for a 9 o’clock check-in, I simply called my nurse back and had her speak to him.

I sat in the waiting area of the tiny clinic. There were maybe 6 rooms probably used for Covid tests or post-op exams. After about an hour, a team of men arrived in scrubs, one of them wearing Converse All-Stars. They had duffel bags full of equipment and a cooler. All three went into the examination room closest to where I was sitting. Are these my guys? I wondered. Yes. They called me in and we clumsily introduced ourselves. My Spanish is not great but I can catch important words and feign understanding. Confidence is the key.

Soon I was in a hospital gown and the gloved and masked men asked me to get on the table. Their first question was, “Can we touch your verga?” “Por supuesto.” I giggled.

The most uncomfortable thing in the whole procedure is an injection into the testicles to numb the area. After that, it was just 40 minutes of what seemed like the doctor explaining to his students what he was doing.

About halfway through, the doctor commented on how expensive the procedure was in the U.S. “Sí, señor.” I agreed. Twice they held up forceps to show me a section of my Vas deferens, I assume, one on each side. Afterwards, everyone was jovial. They handed me a chocolate Kinder egg and asked if they could take a picture.

“De mis huevos?!” I asked.

They burst out laughing.

We posed together, me holding up a peace sign, for some reason, and my egg.

A few hours later, I accepted my award and mingled at the reception with a shit-eating grin on my face the whole time.

About an hour later I returned with the peso but she told me that someone from the bar across the street had paid for me. Which means someone watched the transaction and figured out what had happened.

When she told me this I said, “Ves? Los dioses.”

“Guitarrón” Ron Ribant -Acuarela y tinta 19 cm x 29 cm 2026

A year later I found myself on a lobster boat, fishing for my keep and listening to NPR on the ship radio. I didn’t like what I was hearing. The brazen lying from our soon-to-be authoritarian administration. I didn’t like listening to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. I certainly didn’t like the reports on this Jeffrey Epstein character.

After a full-year of working myself back to a standing position, I felt I had earned a vacation. I remembered how much a 2-month trip to Mexico had expanded my consciousness just four years earlier. I began to dream. I decided that with the last four thousand dollars I had to my name I would travel to the mysterious heart of Mexico again. I took a step in the direction of my dream with a sickening feeling that I needed to get the hell away, from there.

What could I do with a measly four grand? Oh, that figure will shock you later. I booked a two-month adventure from February 2020 - April 2020. Look at those dates again. I wondered what the hell I was going to do for two months alone in Mexico and decided I should learn Spanish. I found an immersion course where I would live amongst Mexicans and take 7 weeks of intensive classes. The cost was $2000 which left me with $2000 for walking around cash.

When we consider the dates of my trip we can surmise that the goddamn pandemic happened in the middle of it and trapped me there. At first I did feel trapped but as that summer wore on, I came to see it as a gift. I felt like Brier Rabbit. I hadn’t learned much in that intensive language program because the two Karens in my class sucked the air right out of the fucking room. I would end up staying for 7 months rather than two and the added time allowed me more opportunities to practice Spanish.

When I thought I was dying in August 2020, I panic-returned to use my New York health care for losers. That was the last time I ever saw a doctor. Turns out I was not dying. When another rug was pulled out from beneath me, I managed to hit my head a few more times and in an act of sheer desperation, I decided to use the last $4000 I had again, what the fuck? to come back to the same Mexican apartment I had rented before.

As I loaded a storage unit with the last of my earthly belongings, I heard disturbing reports on NPR about a bunch of fucking goons ransacking the Capitol. My one-way flight was four days later. I was granted a six-month visa to be in Mexico and I would never set foot on bloody U.S. soil ever again. Although I managed to vote for the Democrats before I left, I missed their entire term.

Now, I like to bring up a fact in an effort to earn respect, or ridicule, or who knows why I tell people this: the most money I ever made in a fiscal year was $34,000.

In 2002.

Of course it goes without saying but you bet your ass that I will say it anyway: that means I somehow survived 24 more years on an annual salary of less than that. Even though I never saw anything like a salary since.

What’s more, after some tallying as 2025 came to a close, I deduced that I have lived in Mexico on that dog eared and expired visa for $39,000. Not per year, for 5 years. One of those sad years brought in only $5000 but two had me living high on the proverbial hog at $10,000 each.

None of those years afforded a trip home much less a trip out of my neighborhood. One reason is that I do not need to gamble with immigration trying to explain my delinquent visa in broken Spanish. The other is that I just can’t afford to travel. Averaging an income of $7800/year means no beach towns for me. So, to be clear, to those who say I am “living my best life”, am I? Sure I live in the most god awfully beautiful place in Mexico but there is nary a Corona in my mini fridge. I am not banging every Mexicana I can get a response from on Tinder. I buy my tank of propane for cooking and heating my showers by the skin of my teeth.

Now, why do I continually write these love letters to you, my American comrades? What’s with all the bitching, fucking this and goddamn that? Well because as I can see by the news, you too are experiencing a bit of hardship at the propane store. And boy may I say, welcome to the fucking party, my friends. I got squeezed out of that system years ago. I tried to warn you that it was coming for you. I said early on, when I took that step in the direction of my dreams, that you will not recognize the place we enjoyed as youngsters. What we’ve been trying to explain to the boomers is finally in their news feeds but they can’t decipher the difference between that and an AI polar bear busting down a tamale stand. The Millennials are rightly pissed, Gen Z is sadly disillusioned, and the ruling class are murderous pedophiles? Wow, just wow.

Now you wanna know how to move to Mexico? Let me tell you, they don’t want you to. With our padded pockets we are raising the rents and pushing the locals out of their generational homes. The gringo parties I go to have Mexican women serving food and maybe more disturbing to me, the talented local musicians awkwardly giving concerts on the terrazas for ex-journeymen and school teachers with pensions. I go once and then never return because you can’t take me anywhere. I end up raging to the hosts about how I never had any money. At least since 2002.

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Housed outdoors in squalid conditions, fed gruel and taught to fight. I was rewarded for drawing blood and scolded for losing. Lacking human touch and socialization, I was left to my own devices. I had to find a way. This is all that I know.

So they shouldn’t be surprised when I’m rescued and snarl at them.

“Why won’t he stop howling after he’s fed?”

”And why does he smell like that?”

They took me to the dog park but I ripped off the Schnauzers ears and we got banned. They bought me a hypoallergenic bed and I tore the goddamned thing to shreds. I chew the thin skin off of my hind legs.

“If he’s young enough you can train him but savage is his personality”

I’m no longer living in the flea-ridden kennel but I still have the splinters in my rump. I recognize the scent of the men who kicked me and yanked my chain. I prefer my usual slop to freeze-dried veal. I didn’t know it would be like this once I got out of that fighting pit. I wanted a sweater and a clean collar. But they make my skin break out in rash.

I’m not sorry. I’m not. What did they expect? I had to share my blood with ticks and chiggers. I was soaking wet and cold. Forgive my suspicion of kindness. Don’t be alarmed by my thousand-yard stare.

Realizing you are broken is a tough pill. If only I was born into a humane family. When you stop lamenting what could have been, the only thing left is what is. I take flea medication now and no longer have to bruise for my keep. But that wild dog is still in there.

Sure, I smell better. But I still go for the jugular and I can’t forget how to, as much as I try.

I watched him produce a nearly empty bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin and pour in the tonic. Bringing liquor into a bar is illegal in the U.S. and I’m pretty sure it is here too. Yet, on the weekly, I see cans of beer that we don’t sell, tucked into dark corners of the bar.

Then tonic boy ordered a Corona.

“Estamos cerrado.” I replied.

Sometimes it’s that close. One minute you’re being a dick, and the next, you’re cut-off.

“We’re closed.” I repeated.

“She’s counting the box, it’s time to go.”

They kept trying. One guy gave me a sob story in English:

“My girlfriend of four years just broke up with me.”

I softened. “In that case.” I slammed a shot glass on the bar.

“I don’t need that.” He said.

I was prepared to give it to him on the house.

Then another guy called out, “¡Gringo, give me a beer!” I didn’t appreciate his tone.

I grabbed my junk and gave it a firm lift. “¡Chinga su madre!”

Shocked faces. They all got the point.

As they filed out I told them to try Barfly, but they whined that it was closed.

Isaak is a solid dude who is dating my coworker. He was really drunk, which she blamed me for an hour earlier. I always make sure that anyone sleeping with any of us stays buzzed all night, and for no charge, something I learned from Sasha’s famous list of bar etiquette.

Isaak told me I was a good friend before switching gears abruptly, exclaiming that my Spanish was, “fucked up.”

“I’m trying.” I said.

“No!”

He wasn’t having it.

The truth is, Mexicans are usually reticent to correct foreigners. In five years, I have only encountered two men who attacked me aggressively for my Spanish. They are both good friends, which is why I haven’t forgotten.

I have been working at a Mexican bar for over a year now and on the busiest nights, every stinking weekend. I don’t understand their aggression, I think I’m doing fine.

Mexican women hit on me at least a few times a month.

“¿Dónde eres?”

“¿Cómo te llamas?”

I shyly tell them about the cocktails and nervously take empty glasses off of the bar. I don’t know how to take it to the next level. I do actually, but I can’t afford to take them out for dinner and drinks, the obvious first date. It’s been this way for so long now that my dating game is in a state of suspended animation. I could be having much more fun.

The day before was Valentine’s Day. The girl that I kissed on this day last year was at the bar again. I thought about telling her, “Happy Anniversary” but caught myself. She hasn’t said so much as a word to me since then.

Mexican women are the most beautiful I have encountered, but like all women, they expect you to pay for dinner and I agree. I am grateful for any adult run-ins I have with them, even if it’s a one-night stand. It’s been said that everyone wants to sleep with the bartender, but no one wants to date him.

My coworkers spoke to my boss about giving me a raise and he agreed that I deserve more because I am a “specialist”. He says I am famous and calls me, “Maestro”. Customers recognize the quality of our drinks and return sometimes months later to enjoy more. I have garnered pledges of financial support too, no less than four of our guests have volunteered to bank roll my dream bar.

This was my strategy when I started working here a year ago. I told myself I would do it for the love of the game, because I wasn’t making any money. When my raise came through, it was a measly 50 pesos per night. That’s just over $2. After a night of jumping up and down in frustration in my lonely apartment, I remembered how much fun I can have at this job. I remember how much I am allowed to drink, even on my days off. I remember the hombres who say, “I’ve been watching you all night and your passion for this is visible. I have money and I want to give it to you for your project.”

I eat shit in an empty plaza at 4 o’clock in the morning and notice my hip is tender the next day. I remember the wipeout and the pendejos I yelled at last night. I find 600 pesos in my pocket and limp back down to the plaza to buy chorizo and tortillas

.

I contacted the shaman, signed up, and asked him if I could hitch a ride with someone.

“You can go with me.”

To prepare, I decided to fast for a few days leading up to it. On the morning of the ceremony, I went for a walk to take my mind off the hunger. I ran into a friend who had been telling me about Temezcals, traditional sweat lodges that he does every week. As part of the ceremony I was excited to tell him I was about to experience my first.

A few minutes later I veered off the street down an alley and ran into the Polish woman, smiling and carrying a bouquet of roses. We chatted about the ceremony later that day and I walked away marveling at how I had run into the two of them, and only the two of them, as I was about to embark on the adventure.

I was nervous. When I got home my horoscope had only one line for me: Do not be afraid of evil.

At the scheduled time of the pick up, I hauled my backpack to the rendezvous point. I had filled it with the items we were instructed to bring: warm clothes, bedding, water, food for an offering, and a cup.

I was to meet the shaman and another man at the park near my house. They were late which added to my nervous anticipation but soon a young man in traditional Huichol costume walked up. The Huichol are an indigenous people from Mexico who believe religion is life itself. Soon the shaman pulled up in a little Honda and off we went. I was shocked when the kid in the backseat cracked open a beer and the shaman joined him while we sped out of town.

More shocking was when we pulled over at the gigantic, fancy grocery store where all the gringos shop. Once inside the shaman instructed me to go get four chickens. When I found him he had a shopping cart half-filled with food. Carrots, onions, peppers, chiles. At the check out he turned to me:

“Can you pay for this?”

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The first one was in the least likely place I could have imagined. Nestled deep in the jungle at what used to be a luxury resort now turned low-budget hostel. It was run-down with crumbling concrete, empty swimming pools, and rusted hardware. The jungle had long since taken it over.

We opted for the lowest budget accommodations available; camping on a platform in the back, under the jungle canopy. There were others camped there too, mostly barefoot hippies with tribal tattoos and dreadlocks. The deck looked like a homeless encampment in Los Angeles. As a fresh-faced gringo, I admit I was intimidated but was accompanied by my new girlfriend who spoke more Spanish than I.

On the first night in the darkness, we lay listening to the cacophony of animals hooting in the trees. When the tribe of Howler Monkeys started grunting I thought there were wild boar right outside the tent.

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“When you go through traumatic times guided by an internal voice, you tend to trust that voice.” March 21, 2021

“I am becoming increasingly loyal to my suffering. It is so familiar now that I wonder if I could live any other way? As I reach 48 years, would therapy take away my fighting spirit? Would dealing with my trauma change the kind of person I have become? My entire story is about this struggle. Who would I be without it?’ April 2, 2021

“You have to go far so you can see what is beyond that.” April 4, 2021

And I drew South America.

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Ciudad de Oaxaca came into view through the clouded window. It spread out before us in a valley far below the highway. I was a passenger on this particular bus for several hours after transferring in Mexico City. To my delight, when the driver would stop to stretch his legs, women boarded with covered baskets full of burritos and tacos for just a few pesos.

I had heard all manner of horror stories about the great city that was home to 20 million people but I had no idea what to expect. Just from the safety of my coach I witnessed a circle of men conducting a dusty dog fight in the median between opposing lanes of traffic. After that I decided it best to stare straight down the aisle and mumble what little Spanish I knew to myself.

I was meeting back up with my girlfriend after leaving her on the Pacific beach of Mazunte a few days earlier. I can still remember her chasing me down through panicked tears as I kicked sand up between my legs, with everything I had strapped to my back. Everything save for the tent, which I left for her in an act of goodwill. Once I left her far enough behind, the reality of what I had done hit me.

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There was overlap with my waiter position and so some days I would do both. On my first day of fishing, I spent the afternoon on shore cutting bait fish for the traps. Stinky, rotten bait fish that filled my nose with the new smell of my life.

To test me out for the position, the captain took his young son and I out to catch mackerel off the boat with rod and reel. I passed his test with my fishing ability and my rapport with his kid. He repeatedly told me that when you pick a sternman, he’s got to be a guy you actually like, after all, we’re going to be seeing each other first thing in the morning, sometimes daily, in awful weather. My ability to greet Mattie with a smile was just as important as his bedside manner was to me.

To prepare for the lobster season we had to go into shore for supplies. There were traps stacked fifteen feet high in his mothers yard that we loaded onto two pick-up trucks. We needed boxes of frozen bait, some skins for me (the rubberized waders that fishermen wear) and some waterproof deck boots. We bought provisions too: bottles of rum and cases of a great local I.P.A., warm clothes for the boat and food.

That first night in shore, Mattie continued with my interview. We drank like sailors and talked about everything from the crazy president to my crazy life. After hearing my pirate philosophy, Mattie was immediately on board. He liked me enough to work with me for the next three months. He was, to this day, the best drinking partner I have ever found.

I was put up in a house on the island notorious for parties because it was usually inhabited by fishermen. It was run down, spartan, and lacked insulation being a summer cottage. It wasn’t bad at first, in the opening days of the season in October. I had a roommate that arrived in the first week. He was a young kid from Connecticut working on a construction crew, doing renovations on the islands summer homes. Taylor worked everyday outside, hauling material and banging hammers. At his core he was just a solid kid, sharing his weed with me and smoking cigarettes whenever either of us got bored. We would go outside in the lee of the neighboring cottage, where we could escape the prevailing winds, something that was of utmost importance as the winter dragged on.

There was an Xbox left in the house that we fired up immediately and found Assassins Creed. We took turns battling the baddies and at night we watched the entire run of Peaky Blinders while I cooked dinner. After a day of fishing, Mattie would send me home with a 5-gallon bucket full of lobster as part of my pay. After weeks of eating it the customary way with melted butter and lemon, I realized that lobster could be substituted for any protein in any dish, raising a pasta or curry recipe to gourmet levels. Taylor and I were particularly fond of the curry.

Being an old cottage, there was a family of rats living in the basement. At first we would hear them running around in the walls but as the winter wore on they started to come inside the kitchen more and more. I would lay awake at night listening to them rifle through the pots and pans. It sounded like there were three cats running around down there. I never saw them, which was unsettling.

One night as I lay in my room, buried under three blankets and dressed in wool long underwear, another layer of clothes, a heavy hooded sweatshirt, and jammed into a 0-degree sleeping bag, I thought, “man, I deserve a vacation.” The rats were having a party downstairs and the wind was howling around the swaying cottage.

“Mexico”, I thought. I imagined my bones thawing on her beaches, the women going topless, and the fish tacos. Maybe a perspiring bottle of Sol between my feet. Yeah, Mexico, for like two months.

Then I thought, “the hell are you going to do for two months in Mexico, alone?” So I looked up immersion language programs and found many in a town called Guanajuato. I knew nothing of it except I had been nearby a few years earlier in San Miguel De Allende. I booked a flight and 7 weeks at a school. A few cold weeks later I decided to see where it was and what I found was google images of this place, a UNESCO world heritage site sunk into a valley high in the mountains, at the geographic center of Mexico.

On one of our shore trips, Mattie took me to his butcher who had slaughtered a goat for him. I had told him that I wanted to try a European mount, an old taxidermy technique where you bury a skull for a year and let the microbes and bugs clean off the meat leaving a golden patina on the bone. The butcher gave me the animals head still sporting the eyeballs and some face meat. Back on the island, I buried it in the flower bed in front of the cottage and placed a good sized rock over the location where I planned on digging it up the following year. But then the pandemic started while I was in Mexico and thwarted my plans to return to Maine. I sent a photo of the location to a friend so she could retrieve the skull but she never got around to it so the head sat in the earth another winter. And then another. As far as I know the skull is still there, a silent reminder of the way plans change, how a little foresight can yield something magical. I think of that skull a foot down in the earth as my pirate treasure waiting there for my return when I will need a sinister totem to hang above my door to warn visitors that I am not the same sod that walked the shores of Monhegan in 2019.

.

I would sit at the bar looking beaten, spending the money I had made working in the concession of a children’s museum. It was a craft beer bar so I would drink the strongest, funkiest thing they had, until I used up all of my tips. One night to my astonishment, she leaned over and asked me what I was doing later.

We went on a midnight stroll to an abandoned factory in our neighborhood. The massive complex was a dark hole in the Philly skyline. It reminded me of things I used to do in Detroit.

We approached the chain link fence surrounding it and I saw one of the most profound things I had ever seen. There, at one section of fence, was a Persian rug draped over the barbed wire. I watched her step on a box and throw herself over. Already, I would have followed her anywhere, so I did the same.

Later when she invited me to her house, she tossed her keys on the table and sighed, seemingly relieved to be home. She opened a nice bottle of wine and we sat in her kitchen continuing our conversation.

Her rowhouse was sparsely decorated but tastefully so. There were books and totems, dried flowers and shoes strewn about the floor. She was wickedly intelligent and cultured, definitely the most sophisticated woman I had ever met in Philadelphia. On another occasion she invited me over to simply spoon her in her bed on the floor. We lay for hours without doing a thing.

I realized that less than one year earlier, another breathtaking woman had asked me to do the same thing; cuddle her in her bed on the floor. She was a tall, buxom DJ with black wavy hair and fair skin, blue or green eyes with rosy cheeks and freckles. Her personality was sarcastic but she too was sweet and smart. Again, so alluring that I would be a fool not to climb in bed with her.

I would later find out they were both heroin addicts and that addicts will often want someone to hold them as they come down. My roommate warned me then that I should never get involved with an addict, because their high will always come first. I never so much as kissed either one of them but have wondered ever since; what was it about me during that period that had made me their choice for cuddle bud and would I ever meet such amazing women again?

The first time I left the U.S., friends recommended I sew a Canadian flag on my backpack. They said I would get fucked with less because some people don’t like Americans. Indeed, I found that to be true. As I toured through Italy, I encountered many young people on the hostel circuit. At first I was treated like an American; rudely. Forgetting about my Canadian patch, I would excitedly announce,

“I’m from Detroit!”

Frowns from my Canadian compadres.

After hanging out for a few hours I would get this:

“You’re not a typical American. Come with us.”

They pressed me on our politics and accused us of being colonialists. I didn’t understand. What about Bill Clinton? Isn’t he doing a good job? The Iranian soldier patted me on the head and said, “how cute you are, Ronald.” She was the smartest girl I had ever met and she could have easily choked me out, right there over my gnocchi.

In Mexico, when I see white people dressed up like Indiana Jones, I eavesdrop on their conversation. 9 times-out-of 10 they are talking about money. Price, cost, value, rent, mortgage, investment, pension. I keep my eyes trained forward and pretend to be French. When I tell Mexicans this they hold up one finger and bend it repeatedly in a frenzy. It’s the way they non-verbally show agreement. Eres muy raro Ronnie, nunca escuchamos a los gringos decir eso.

The thing is, I noticed this long before I ever left my country. I just thought it was me. I told my mother I was switching my major from Graphic Design to Fine Arts after one year. She advised against it protesting there was no money in painting.

Through tears I responded, “I would rather eat crackers for dinner than have to sit in class with these assholes one more semester.”

Unquote.

And now, I am indeed eating crackers for dinner.

Además, when I try to explain that Sasha’s bars never made any money, people are confused. How can that be, he’s credited as one of the most influential barmen of our time? It wasn’t about the money for Sasha either. He just wanted to prepare and serve the best cocktail you ever had.

On Thursday I had lunch with a gringo who commissioned a painting last year. He was checking up on me and offered to treat. When I told him I was bartending his first question was,

“How’s the money?”

“Terrible” I said.

“Then why do you do it?!”

With zeal, “For the love of the game!” you Boomer.

I had that one in the barrel as I’ve been telling myself that’s why I work grueling 10-hour shifts for $35.

It’s not just Americans that are infected with this mindset, Mexicans are baffled too. Why would you give so much of yourself with nothing in return? Because it’s not nothing in return. Stop chasing a payday and start doing things because they are beautiful. Stop letting your needs cost money. Stop paying those that already have more than you. Stop listening to predictable advice. And stop telling me I should sell my paintings in the street. I already have a plan and it won’t look like anything you’ve ever seen. Why would you do something if not for the money?

Hold my beer, man.

Sunday Service

1.5 oz Tequila Blanco

.5 oz Aperol

.75 oz Lemon

.75 oz Sweetened Ginger Syrup

2 slices cucumber in the shaker

Shake all ingredients and strain over ice in a double rocks glass. Garnish with salted cucumber slices. José Cardenas Diamond Reef, NYC 2019

After I scraped myself off the floor, I whimpered back to the Hudson Valley where all my crap was still in the boxes. I worked three restaurant jobs and slept in my friends attic. After months of this, I ended up in the hospital with a mysterious headache that doctors never figured out. While I lay in the hospital for two weeks, jacked up on steroids, I decided I wasn’t going back to my life as I knew it. I wasn’t going to slave away in the back or front of the house smiling and taking shit from assholes one more day.

I looked into an opportunity I knew of to work on an island in the tourist industry where I could slave away in the back and front of the house smiling and taking shit from assholes. But here, I wouldn’t have to come up with rent because the hotel housed me and fed me twice a day.

I did this all summer until a lobsterman asked me to fish with him in the fall which I agreed to because I had nothing to go back to. During that cold winter I dreamed of Mexico, and learning Spanish so that I could escape the relentless cost of living in the U.S. I booked a two-month trip which, at the time, seemed like the craziest thing I could think of.

Halfway through my language program the goddamned pandemic started and trapped me in Mexico so that, by golly, I learned Spanish. I had to. I found an apartment and hunkered down for apocalypse 2020.

When I returned to the U.S after 7 months instead of 2, she had changed. Everybody was terrified. Public spaces were closed, my friends would only see me on the porch. With all the money I had in the world starting to dwindle quickly, I decided to make one last stab at life by coming back to Mexico. I bought a one-way ticket and left everything to the fates. As soon as I got settled, I bought a set of oil paint. Someone had stolen mine in 1996 and I never had enough money to replace it, those motherfuckers.

This wasn’t for fun. This was survival. I painted my way out of despair and to my astonishment, you great people started buying these things and it began to pay my rent. Mexicans soon noticed too, and told me to enter a contest. I poured my heart and soul into my entry and they gave me an honorable mention. Nice job gringo. I was the only foreigner accepted.

Then I found a Spanish language program for foreigners at the University of Guanajuato. Meanwhile, my 6-month visa was expiring but I had no money to go home and nowhere to go. So I stayed.

When the semester was over I was offered a one-man show 8 months in the future. All the while, I wrote about my experience. Some of you supported me by becoming paid subscribers to my newsletter. When I ran the numbers for 2022, I realized I lived here for $5500. For the entire year. $2K something in painting sales, $500 in subscriptions and $2K something in just artist support. The year before that I managed to live here on $7000.

Now I’m committed to this. There is no doubt that this is working out for me better than anything I ever did in the U.S. Why would I leave? Instead, I’ve been meeting with an immigration lawyer who is helping me gain my temporary residency card. I have $40 but I have to do this. For my legal status, for my whacked out principles, and for my soul.

I’ve been leaning on my other talents like making cocktails. Though Mexicans will chide me about my suspenders and stoic behavior, it rolls off of me. By now I don’t expect many to recognize this new place I’m in. I’m turning my tailspin into a goddamned tornado.

Los Altos

• 1.5 oz Tequila Blanco

• .5 oz Mezcal Espadín

• 1.5 Jugo de Piña

• .5 Jugo de Limón

• .5 Jarabe simple

Agua mineral

Combine everything except soda water in a shaker with two ice cubes. Shake twice, add splash of soda and pour into chilled Collins glass with fresh ice. Garnish with pineapple wedge and leaf.